it's the end of the year as we know it.

I set a goal this year of running 1000 miles. I missed last year by not much. Now I know by hardcore running standards, this is not really all that much. Take into consideration I am usually training for triathlons as well as running, I thought it was a good goal. Tonight was what I believe will be my last run of the year. So I will be ending 2008 with 1270 miles in the bank. Not too bad, 270 above what I was shooting for. In 2009, I'd like to hit 1500. That should be doable.

So it's Tuesday, which means Tuesday night at the track. I really have decided it's better for me to go early. Yes, I miss out on the team workouts but if I do that, we don't start til 8pm, I don't get home til almost 10 and I am wired. So my routine now is to run up there  (2.5 miles, great warm up) and do the work outs. I'm done by 8pm.

Tonight was 8x 400 with 2 minutes active recovery then 4x200.

1:44, 1:40, 1:40, 1:44, 1:40, 1:42, 1:40, 1:39

pretty consistent.

200s:

44, 44, 43, 42

In other news, I got word today my HS XC coach died suddenly over the weekend. Bob Kiessling was his name and he coached for years all over South Jersey. He was my first real running coach. I remember him talking about running marathons my freshman year. I thought no way could I ever do that. Now I've done 10. Those of us who ran as kids all remember our coaches and the impact they've had on us. Mr. K is no exception to this. He will be missed by many.

Still in the 'Ham

Today in the Ham it was 75 degrees with 400000 percent humidity. Much warmer than I've run in in a while with NYC's 30 degree weather and icy streets. Today we hit the track again with my mom. She's being a real sport about it. Even when she bitches. I think she wants to do this though doesn't want to come right out and say it (and I know you sometimes read this mom). Loren and I have both seen her looking over the training plan.

Mean while, Loren took me around to some of her HS running haunts. No wonder she's so friggin fast. Everything here is hilly. I put in 8.5 miles of hills. I felt terrible, though I know part of that was the heat.

Tomorrow we're heading home. All in all, this has been a pretty good trip.

sweet home alabama

I spent xmas down in Alabama with Loren and her folks. This year, we brought my mom who has never meet Loren's parents.
So far so good.
Yesterday, on xmas day, we went to Loren's HS track to run while her parents walked.
And...
To start my mom on the couch to 5k.
I gave her the program for xmas and today we went and got her some proper running shoes. I'm going to have her come run the Cogan's 5k on March 1st. She did her first workout with little complaint and pretty easily.
While my day was an uneventful 6 (hilly! Birmingham is hilly!), one of the best runs I've had all year was the minute on, 1.5 minutes off with my mom.

Ice ice baby

When I woke up this morning, there were big, fluffy flake of snow falling from the sky. Before long, it turned to rain turning all of yesterday and last night's snow into a big big mess.

I hate running on the treadmill, esp. since it takes just as long to get to the gym on the bus as it would for me to run there.

Loren and I decided to go to the movies early in the afternoon. We went and saw Milk (which I believe should be required watching for everyone in this country). Since we went near the bottom of Central Park, I decided I'd run home. I figured the park would be clear, they're usually really good about that.

When we came out of the movie, the sun was out and it had totally cleared up.

I had a great 4 mile run. It was clear out, not too cold, and the park was full of people walking,  running, sliding down the hills of snow on just about everything you can imagine.  I saw another Front Runner out there as well, we high fived as we passed each other. The only real downside was lots of black ice. It was a bit slick.

Winter running so far hasn't been that bad.

hell no we wont snow!

This morning, NYRR had the last race of the year slated, a 15k. I ran my ass off during this race and was sorta maybe hoping to do the same this year. Well, mother nature had other plans. NYC got hit with a mild snow storm yesterday leaving everything an icy slushy snowy mess. In interest of preventing broken ankles, NYRR turn the race into a fun run. Usually I go do these things anyway but this morning I was feeling lazy.

Instead I waited til almost 10am and headed out for an 8 miler in the park with Loren. It was 24 degrees with a windchill of 14. Dressed properly, I didn't mind at all. I wore a winter cycling jacket and stuck a fuel belt bottle in the pocket so I'd have some water. All the fountains in the park are shut off. A little more than a mile into the run, we ran into another Front Runner. The 3 of us had a lovely run around the loop. I saw a hawk fly by with it's breakfast dangling from it's beak and land in a tree. I saw several red cardinals sticking out brightly against the white snow. Central Park has amazing birds.

I love running in the park in the snow, clearly so do many many other NYers. Many braved the conditions and did the 15k anyway while others were simply out there on their own.

Except for the first and last hilly/icy miles, I was clipping off miles around 9:10 pace. I felt really good. 8 miles for the day.

In other news, I went back to PT Pete yesterday. He thinks I'm in fairly good shape I just need to get back on the program. I plan on it, I dont want to go into a new cycle hurting.

memories

Yesterday, someone from the RWOL forum sent me this message:
I hope this doesn't sound weird, but I was kind of going through some of my old marathon photos & I noticed one from the Philly 07 marathon that had some "Front Runners" in it. I looked at it a little closer & thought - hey, that looks like dogpound from the BQ thread! My husband was taking some pictures of random runners in anticipation of me arriving at the spot he was waiting at.
Then emailed me the above picture.
I love this picture. I am running with my friend and coach, Kelsey. From the looks of it, this is just after the half way mark where the half marathoners finish and the rest of us continue to go at it. As many of you know, I did not finish that race. At the time this photo was taken, I had been running in pain for at least 3 miles. I would run another 4 with the pain in my ITB increasing with every step. I'm almost certain Kelsey and I are talking about that in this picture. He never flat out said stop running but he hinted at it in a way that I knew it would be ok. If I had been by myself I would have muscled through to the end, finished with a crappy time and most likely really hurt myself. Instead I stepped off at mile 17, crying like a baby with him insisting I keep telling myself that I'm a 3 time Ironman and this doesn't matter.
Philly was a huge turning point for me. If I had tried to finish that race, I would not have gone on to a 17 minute PR in Phoenix 2 months later. And PR again in Oct.
While I haven't hit my goal of qualifying for Boston, I know I'm on my way. I'll either get faster or I'll just get older!

As for Kelsey, he finally hit his goal of a Sub 3 hour marathon, and in NY no less. And he did it stride for stride with Chris, another fabulous team mate who has also been gunning for sub 3.

(awesome photo by Alex Kristofcak)

NEW NEW NEW!!!

Ok tonight I tried a few different things for my track work out. First, I went early and ran alone and not with the team. I dont really have a problem motivating myself to doing this then I just do it and it's done. Yea, I miss out on the whole team aspect of things, but right now, I'm kinda ok with that. Also, HS kids have to outa there by 7 and the adults are just filing in so 6:30-7 is a really nice time.
For my warm up, I ran up to the track. It's exactly 2.5 miles from my house which is perfect since I tend to need a longer warm up. It's mostly uphill which is fine, I kept the pace easy.
It was also snowing when I ran up there which was pretty awesome. It hadn't started sticked yet. By the time I left it had so I'm glad I wasn't running home. I also love running up through Harlem. It hasn't turned into box store hell yet.

Tonight's work out was 4x1200 with 400 in between. The pace was "around 5 mile race pace". Honestly, I have no idea what that is for me right now. I ran them between 7:32-7:38 pace which felt pretty good. Can I run 5 miles at that pace right now? Doubt it, though I just ran a 4 miler at 7:55 pace.

It was also nice to finish before 9:30. I'm still toying with the idea of continuing to go early, we'll see.

Of course now it's past midnight since I got totally sucked into Whale Rider.

everyday is like sunday

In an attempted to up my milage for the rumored upcoming marathon cycle, I went out for a lovely 4 mile run this morning.
I felt really really good.
I ran with music for the first time since I sweat fried my ipod in August. That was a nice change. I ran the hills of Harlem and felt fresh coming off my 8.5 mile from yesterday.
If I keep this up, this spring marathon thing may actually happen.

I need a finish line

So much for my resting...
Every year, my team does an in house competition, based on how NYRR does it's team points competition, but based on age. I've won twice and this year was like, eh, whatever.
Then the latest result were out and I was in the lead, but barely. Then I started to care. So I raced today to hopefully hold off the competition. I wasn't really planning on racing until I saw how close it was. Next week I was planning on doing the 15k (still am!).
Long story longer, I ran a 4 miler this morning. It was COLD. It was also the best 4 miler I've run all year. Granted all of my running time has been devoted to the marathon not this short distance stuff. I ran 31:41, 7:55 pace. I'm happy about this for a few reasons:
1. I haven't run sub 8 pace since about March in a race.
2. I get to stay seeded sub 8 pace with NYRR for now. I am, however. planning on running faster in the spring!
Since rumor has it I will jump back into marathon training fairly soon oh and yea, I'm doing a 15k next week, I wanted a few extra miles. After the race, I met up with Loren and ran 4 more. I'm not sure I've run that much since NY.
Even though it was cold, I felt really good. Which is good, need to get use to this cold!

fun on the tarck

Over the last year, I have run mostly during the day. I'm lucky that my work schedule (or lack there of depending on how you look at it) has allowed me to do that.
Now it's winter. It's cold. We have sunlight for 5 minutes a day. I get more dramatic.
Anyway, I can still run during the day, though as I've mentioned before, my team does track work outs at night. This will take some getting use to. I missed a few weeks while away and was back at it tonight.
We did 1600, 2x800, 4x400. The idea was to get faster as you went along. I think I did a pretty good job:
1600=7:49
800=3:49
800=4:48
400 1:43, 1:41, 1:39, 1:36
I only hope I'm not sore tomorrow.

bbbrrrr

Well today was the last team points race for the year,the Joe Kleinerman 10K. This race usually has a big turn out since it's the last teams points race and a double points race to boot. Not to mention people are trying to get their required races in for the NYC marathon.
Last year, I ran this race really well, pacing a team mate and PRing in the process. This year...not so much. Coming off of 2 weeks of sitting off my ass and still being jet lagged, I didn't have a whole lot of expectations. I ran a 51:10 and I ran pretty consistently. I'm happy with that. It's good to know I can phone it in and still run fairly well.
And the team did awesome. The men's and women's open teams both placed 8th, the first time the women broke the top 10 all year. Our master's teams were both 6th. Men over 50 7th and men over 60, 2nd (all posting faster times than me! Do not mess with our older guys!). So great running everyone!
I think tomorrow I will be stiff. Not sore, but certainly feeling it.

insert Toto song here, just for Flo

Well, I'm back from Africa. As promised, I did not run at all. That's the longest break I've had since March. I felt like every little thing I ate added pounds. I'm still processing my trip, it was an amazing experience on so many levels. Once I sort it all out, I'm sure I'll have more to say about it. My thoughts are all over the place. In the mean time, take a look at my photos.
I look at these and I think yea yea, the animals were totally cool to see, which is true, but the really cool thing to me was the experience of the people.


So now that I'm back in NYC, I'm back to running. After 2 weeks off to let my body get some rest after the marathon craziness of the fall, I ran 4.5 miles today. Didn't feel too bad. I'm surprised my ankle's a little stiff after the fact. Tomorrow is a 10k which I'm doing just for team reasons. As I've said to a few friends, I'll be running 10 minute miles with a cup of coffee. Of course we all know that's not true, but I wont be out there running any PRs. Plus the weather is suppose to suck.

There a small band of chicks on my team who are planning for the NJ marathon in May. A few people were very close to BQ times in NYC and have something to prove. While I myself have only verbally committed, I'm not sure I'm ready to jump into the grind again. I'm sure I'll come around.